Tag Archives: single mothers

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4 weeks ago, I published an article on Kevin.MD that garnered a lot of attention. It was titled The Myth of the Entitled Single Mother Remains as Relevant as Ever.* In it, I reversed the popularized notion that single mothers are a societal liability and suggested that instead, they are powerful forces in our local economies and influential leaders of future generations. I presented the idea that how society thinks about single mothers affects how we fiscally prioritize their needs. The point was, stigmatizing public rhetoric informs pubic policy in ways that perpetuate inequality and contribute to poor health. In response, however, I received a number of comments, many from other physicians, suggesting that such a topic was not “medical” enough to warrant physician concern.

That sentiment sits at the crux of one of the most contentious debates in medicine and frames one of the most important questions facing clinicians today. If inequality drives poor health, what is the physician’s role in addressing the structural forces in society that perpetuate inequality?

To answer this question, we must first unpack the ways enduring public narratives inform our institutions and shape opportunities in America. We must talk about how structural forces in society can align to create predictable patterns of disenfranchisement, including inter-generational poverty and poor health. Let’s get started!

The archetypes society erects to distinguish populations, commonly by race, gender, socioeconomic, marital, or immigration status, are not simple social tropes that define broad categorizations of people. Over time, and historically in fact, these social constructs lay deep roots in the political processes that govern society, processes that in turn, inform many of the institutions on which society relies, including the justice system, the education system, and the public health system. This pattern of influence is problematic because it allows shared public stereotypes to drive major public policy. This institutionalizes bias and creates inequality. And as we know, inequality drives poor health.

Let’s take one example of this and flesh it out. Look at the effect of race and gender on incarceration rates in America and the associated health consequences.

African-Americans make up 13.1% of the US population and yet African-American males alone, make up 38% of those incarcerated in federal and state prisons today. That means Black males are 6 times more likely to be incarcerated than White males and if these trends continue, 1 in 3 Black males will be imprisoned at some point in their lifetime.

The origin of the stark racial disparities in the US criminal justice system is complex and multifactorial. It is, in part, related to the disproportionately high rates of poverty,** unemployment, and low educational attainment in African-American communities. But it is also driven by a public narrative that associates Black males with criminality. That is why, even when you control for the crime rate, Black males are more likely to be arrested, once arrested, more likely to be convicted, and once convicted, more likely to face longer prison sentences than their White peers. This criminalization of African-American males is far from benign and, in fact, may have adverse health consequences for Black children and Black families.

When 1 in 3 African-American males are projected to be removed from their communities, often at the age of greatest productivity, it has profound effects on the communities in which these men live.*** Without their earning potential, these families disproportionately rely on the income of single mothers, many of whom live on the brink of poverty.**** Children who live in poverty are more likely to have poor health as adults, including increased risk for cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, arthritis, and depression. What is more, there is evidence to suggest that these risks persist, despite changing social class in adulthood. That means, there are physiologic pathways whereby systems of inequality and social stress may act to create immutable changes to children’s bodies, affecting everything from their brain development to their DNA. These changes can potentially be passed down to future generations, allowing under-resourced social environments to create predictable patterns of disease.

When considered in this way, it is easy to see how shared public narratives can become entangled in policies that systematically disenfranchise families and communities, dismissing productive members of society, shaping local economic opportunities, and informing the health of our future generations. When the life expectancy of a child can be predicted by the zip code in which they live, it exposes important drivers of health and disease in America. As physicians, we must dissect the threads that connect sociopolitical environments to biological consequences. If that is not “medical” enough to warrant our concern, I don’t know what is.

This is the future of medicine and it requires physicians confront issues of stigma and inequality as a function of their clinical duty to promote health and wellness. Doing so will certainly be a challenge. Success will rely on our ability to understand the impact social, political, and economic environments have on the population’s health and, to systematically incorporate this framework into the canon of medical scholarship and medical education. From there, we will need to build interdisciplinary models that bridge political action with health impacts. Jonathan Metzl and Helena Hansen have mapped a way to do that in their article entitled, “Structural Competency: theorizing a new medical engagement with stigma and inequality.” There is much to do be done. Let’s get to work!

Footnotes:

* Kevin.MD. is an online medical publication. You can also find this article on my site here!

** Communities in poverty have higher rates of crime regardless of racial composition.

*** This lends a new urgency to addressing the national gender wage gap, a gap that is wider for women of color, as communities of color may disproportionately rely on the income of women. It also underscores the importance of creating pipelines to higher education for men and women of color, to both supplant the pipeline to prison and to position women of color to occupy leadership roles in the community.

**** Many states also legally revoke prior felon’s voting rights and increasingly, laws and policies are being enacted to limit prior felon’s ability to: obtain employment, receive government benefits like food stamps, access public housing, or qualify for student loans. This results in 1 in 13 African-Americans no longer being able to vote today and prevents countless others from making meaningful contributions to their families and communities.

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There is a disconcerting myth about single mothers that has been circulating in our society for some time. It was popularized in the Regan Era as a denunciation of US social welfare policy and resulted in a pointed caricature of a woman on welfare, forever to be known as the “welfare queen” or the entitled single mother.

The narrative of such a woman goes something like this: Not only is she poor, but worse yet, she is unpatriotic and weak. She is nothing more than the vessel for her lascivious desires as she has child after child out-of-wedlock, abusing the luxury of government aid to ensure herself a life of leisure. Her welfare dependency is as much a result of her moral failings as it is of society’s willingness to foot the bill. If “real Americans” get by on what they make out of their bootstraps, then her crime is never wanting bootstraps at all.

Sound intense? Apparently not for Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who invoked this relic of American political discourse this week to shame single mothers out of their welfare benefits. He was quoted at a Lexington Commerce Meeting as saying, “Maybe we have to say ‘enough’s enough, you shouldn’t be having kids after a certain amount.’ I don’t know how you do all that because then it’s tough to tell a woman with four kids that she’s got a fifth kid we’re not going to give her any more money. But we have to figure out how to get that message through because that is part of the answer.”

It is clear that at a time when both Democrats and Republicans seem primed to address the issue of growing income inequality in our country, the myth of the entitled single mother remains as relevant as ever. That problem is, this false characterization of single mothers, particularly those receiving government benefits, ignores the real lives these working mothers lead, undermines the contribution of women to the American economy, and ultimately prevents society from understanding how government funding should be spent to address income inequality.

The bottom line is, the myth of the entitled single mother separates us from the reality that women are the core of the American economy, including single mothers. In the words of President Obama, “when women succeed, America succeeds.” And the truth is, single mothers are single-handedly controlling the future of America. Let me tell you why.

Women are bringing home the bacon unlike ever before.

Since 1960, the number of women who are the primary wage-earners for their household has almost quadrupled, such that women now comprise nearly two-thirds of the breadwinners or co-breadwinners in their family. And as it turns out, more than 6 and 10 of the women who are the primary breadwinners in their home, are single mothers.

Women are using that money to boost the American economy.

Although some have speculated that women influence anywhere from 70-80% of the consumer spending in their household, it is hard to argue that single mothers don’t control 100% of their household spending. That’s anything from buying cars and computers to purchasing healthcare. With the struggling auto industry, surge in online technology, and new changes in healthcare, that means single mothers are literally at the center of the markets that are defining the ways we live, move, communicate, and stay healthy.

Women are redefining the social contract.

Without a second income in the household, families lead by single mothers are also the most vulnerable to economic stress, and in the words of Maria Shiver’s latest report, many are living on the brink of poverty. Growing income inequality and poverty may be the defining issues of our time. The urgency of these problems require us to push new boundaries. Although the traditional social contract exists between the US government and the people, in which we give the government authority to rule if the government will protect our rights and help us when we fall on hard times; the new social contract defines the relationship between businesses and the people. That if we are to work for you and buy your goods, then businesses must also contribute to the general well-being of society by paying fair wages and providing various benefits (health insurance etc).

To make a long story short, businesses aren’t holding up their end of the deal, and it is time to remind them and raise the minimum wage. It is estimated that doing so may be a real solution to lifting some families out of poverty, many of whom are led by single mothers. And as we know, poverty poses one of the greatest threats to the health and well-being of children in the United States, making it also one of the greatest threats to the health of adults, as most children grow up to be adults.

Taken together, it is clear that our ability to succeed as a nation will be defined by our willingness to support single mothers and their families. Be it through their economic contribution to their community or their role in raising the future leaders of this country, these women are fearlessly facing the adversity in their lives, daring to raise children without Rand Paul’s approval, and working towards a better future for themselves and their families. They are not entitled, they are in need of our utmost regard for enduring despite the odds and we should invest in them. Period.

Adulthood Looms

Graduation!June 30th, 2013

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The opinions stated here only reflect mine and are not representative of any of the institutions I have attended or currently attend. Also, although I am a licensed physician, any generalized opinions I offer are not meant as medical advice to treat or advise patients. Medical decisions can only safely be made in consultation with a doctor you know and trust. Also, links to other websites do not imply that I endorse any of the views expressed there or products advertised there.